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Declaration of the Occupation of New York City
This document was accepted by the NYC General Assembly on September 29, 2011, with slight adjustments in wording on October 1, 2011:
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
- Posted in
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181 Comments so far
Show AllI think you left of a 0 on the number of Senators?
How would we handle a Congress of 14,500 members?
Not saying it can't be done, I have had ideas of Internet Based Assemblies that could handle that number, but I'm curious how you think we should handle it.
Also, would it not be simpler to solve this proportionality problem by ceding more power back to the individual States?
The numbers for large States would still be intimidating (California would need 1500 in one House and 500 in the other) but much less so than for the nation as a whole. And the numbers for small States might do wonders for the process (Wyoming would need only 19 and 6 members respectively).
Also, the average State pop of 6,162,876 would imply an average State Legislature of 205 and 68. Lastly, the bulk of States (36) have pops between 10 and 1 million, meaning Legislatures of 333 and 111 to 33 and 11 would be the typical range.
See my ezeflyer reply post.
You are right about the senatorial count. I should have said 3,500 senators.
Whenever democracy is watered down, corporations gain influence. Asking questions like, "How would you handle huge numbers of reps and senators" is ridiculous in this era of 24/7 web sites and internet communications. The old concept of meeting in a big building is stupid and ungainly. It lends itself to elitism. It destroys democracy. I'm sure you are quite comfortable with the present status quo since you totally neglected to address the FACT that a vote is now worth one twenty third of what it was worth in 1789.
Explanation? You like things how they are now (undemocratic and corrupt!). Sell your sophistry to someone else, pal.
Why have senators at all?
And the most pure form of represntative democracy would not have elections at all - the represntatives would be picked from the citizenry by random lottery, similar to jury duty.
Of course our vote is diluted. In 1790 the US had a population of 4 million. Today there are 300 million. A vote today is worth 1/75th of a vote in 1790. So what?
re: "Specifically in regard to election reform, we need to get back to 30,000 per congressional district and the original ratio of senators to representatives of about one senator for every three reps of 1789."
I concur that there needs to be something done not only about district size, but also about the insane practice of gerrymandering which turns every district map into a political rorschach test serving only entrenched interests. Whatever the influential and powerful want to see in an elecorate, they get, and it almost always screws the Left.
Below with ezeflyer, you seem to be supportive of direct democracy — which I believe certainly has a place — but I agree more with your idea of making our reps more truly representative, by shrinking overly-large districts, limiting constituencies, and discarding the 2 senators per state rule. Personally, I prefer the idea of splitting up some states, like California in particular, and I wouldn't be against the idea of regionalizing the USA into 5 distinct federal districts, each with its own executive, congressional and legislative branches, but only one shared military apparatus. But that's a whole other debate, for another day.
Specifics are good, and these details will by matter of course need to be re-addressed when the time for enactment of real reform arrives. For the sake of healthy democracy, the pathetic state of our national representation cannot be maintained! Thanks for your important comment agelbert.
Good ideas except revoking "corporate personhood" is perhaps the toughest nut to crack, although I agree with you wholeheartedly on it as a top priority goal.
I honestly thought the momentum towards revocation of corporations' protections as 'persons' was building quite admirably by the 'Move To Amend'. This was being pushed quite prevalently a number of months before the Occupy Wall Street protests began.
I recommend everyone go here and sign if you haven't already:
http://movetoamend.org/
And if facebook organizing is peoples' thing (I think it has it's merits and demerits), go here:
http://www.facebook.com/Move2Amend
I suspect you were already well aware of 'Move To Amend', metal. Do you not feel that it's achieving its intended effect?
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Great video by Anonymous - The Bankers are the Problem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5xRaQnHGA0&feature=youtube_gdata_player
www.ampedstatus.com
From ampedstatus:
"As long as the economy and government are rigged by the top economic one-tenth of one percent, we will all lose. It's time to unite and fight back!
AmpedStatus is part
of a decentralized movement that has two key goals:
1) Break up the "Too Big To Fail" banks and Federal Reserve.
2) End the system of political bribery (campaign finance, lobbying, revolving door.)
Unless we organize and take decisive action on these two core common ground issues, we will all suffer the consequences of our inaction. "
Good set of Objectives I believe - no need to make it too long or overly detailed.......We the People are smart enough to fill in between the lines.
re: "The Bankers are the Problem."
BANKSTER is an awesome meme. I think we should try to use it as often as possible. Otherwise, spot on!
I agree with the bankster term -
The title from above is the name of the Anonymous video - creepily good!
True enough. I guess you can't go around posting the wrong name of things... so my bad.
Cheers mtdon and
Long Live the Occupation!
(which is itself a strange thing to say... as I inherently oppose all occupations. But even this can be seen as another 'taking back of the language', a usurpation of the terminology and memes used by empire. We must end all other occupations, —except this one!—)
Anonymous video cued and ready to play as soon as I save this message...
Great video, and a must-see for anyone who hasn't yet.
Ominous, to the point, informative and hilarious at once. Definitely not to be taken lightly, and probably has at least a few fat cats crapping in their Giorgio Armani suits.
Funny and chilling. In the tradition of Pirate Jenny. Hear Nina Simone's version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7awW5nrDHk
This is what happens when we open a can of worms: some manage to slip away. They forgot to add The Rights of Nature, the fact that the banksters & corporados have turned the natural world into a commodity. WE REQUEST AN AMMENDMENT!
I would certainly agree with rights for natural communities and ecosystems. Our planet and all things on it are not anyone's property. If nature is property sooner or later we are too.
I don't have the right to criticize this manifesto. While they spent the last 14 days living and meeting and marching and sleeping outdoors, in some unpleasant weather, I was comfortable in my home. While they ate whatever was available from donations, I had the pick of my fridge and pantry. And while they braved police batons (that's the modern and more effective version of the old nightstick) and pepper-spray and arrest and prosecution, I was safe at home. No one who wasn't there has the right to criticize.
All right now, let's look at the one, big, really dire problem which will matter more than all others: Global Climate Change.
Wall Street is guilty of perpetuating the use of fossil fuels, thus the warming of our planet. This fact needs to be emphasized more since it's life and death for most of Earth's species, including most of us.
Here on the North Coast of Maine, the high tides are gradually getting higher. Yesterday the Atlantic Ocean was within a few inches of parts of Route 1 (which goes from Florida to Canada). NYC will lose large chunks of itself when the Atlantic Ocean rises a foot, then two, then three in not so many years, including parts of Wall Street which are low-lying.
Please make this a more prominent piece of the discussion, General Assembly.
This is of huge importance, I agree. But there are problems with the 'IDEAS' of global climate change, and/or global warming.
It offers too much of a chance of dithering, of pondering and endless disputation. Yes, there is widespread agreement, but there is also even more widespread confusion. The causes of global climate change are either too complicated or too ultimately misunderstood for an easy consensus to arise as to how we must confront the problem.
This is one of the reasons I have begun to consider the idea of Global Climate Change as another red-herring, or false-meme utilized by Empire.
People, its EASY. It's called POLLUTION, and its fucking up the air we breath, the water we drink, and the earth from which all our lives arise and gain nourishment.
Yes, the polar caps are melting away. But this is not why people get involved or concerned. They don't understand anything about what 'warming' entails. To the average American, polar ice caps melting means new real estate to buy and exploit, and to build vacation homes on.
But if we explain to them that when they get to their wonderful new, warm Alaskan home, all the fish will be dead, the soil is no longer viable due to lack of bears crapping in the woods, if we explain that our water table if poisoned, it will never again be potable within our lifetimes, or our great great great grandchildrens', that we will all become enslaved to companies to synthesize and manufacture all our life's needs — *perhaps* they will finally understand better the stakes they are confronting.
Floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts, pestilences and plagues... These are just more examples of God's wrath, and the coming end times to most Americans. Loss of diversity... that's just less competition for cattle and sheep. The general population embraces it, believe it or not. That's not a frame we can allow to be supported.
Toxic chemicals causing mutations, soaring cancer rates, loss of soil fertility, of reproductive fertility, toxins getting into our food, into our produce... frames not found as much in the Bible, and not easily dismissed as 'God's Plan'. These are better and more concrete ways to explain the hazards we're dealing with in the world today.
Cheers Cleanearth, and a good point brought up despite my nuanced difference of opinion.
Absolutely agree: the collapse of our eco-systems trump everything for they are our support system.
Corporate controlled media is not interested in the truth of the reality of 98% of us. Thus, the revolution will not be televised. That is probably to our advantage. As the people become more and more oppressed and the truth suppressed, more will awaken and join the cause of demanding the return of power to the people.
"People's Front of Judea! We're the Judean People's Front!" - "Life of Brian"
Being against "them" is not the basis for a serious movement. What are we for? What solutions do we offer?
As absurd as the so-called TEA Party "movement is" they are for a short list of simple solutions: 1) lower taxes; 2) less government; 3) less regulation. Whether or not we agree with or find absurd these simple tenets, they formed the basis around which an absurd movement did, in fact, coalesce. Why were they effective? Because , a short list of apparent solutions expressed in the simplest terms will attract the greatest amount of folks into the movement. Being for the short list is more effective to form the movement than a long list of whiny sounding grievances that basically boils down to "We're against "The Man!" or "Wall Street" or "Them," or the "People's Front of Judea!"
Why not select, simplify and state some solutions? Just for starters, try this:
In order to strengthen our democracy which, as devised to us by the founders, we cherish and seek to perpetuate, we urge the immediate adoption of the following :
A constitutional amendment defining the term "persons" wherever the term appears in the constitution and any of its many amendments as meaning natural persons, exclusively, and not business entities or associations.
A constitutional amendment authorizing public financing as the sole source of political campaign funding subject to means, amounts and other limitations as Congress may determine.
The idea is to expressly provide what the movement is FOR not just what it is against in a way that offers real solutions to a short list of problems. You guys can come up with a better short list than I can. Go for it!
If the List of Grievances is long, it is because the number of Grievances are many.
The "Tea Party" was/is an astro-turf manipulation of popular -and therefore unfocused- discontent, remember?
This is the process by which "solutions" are being discovered.
For example, your two Amendments are indeed simple and to the point.
But they will have far-reaching consequences attached to them which will make them anything but simple to achieve.
I would counter that at the point where we are talking Amendments of such scope, we should be talking about a full Constitutional Convention.
With the current focus on Grievances and "lack of focus" this process allows BOTH of us in, whereas if either your ideas or mine were already chosen this early on, either of us might back away.
There has been far too much assuming about what are the real issues and the real solutions on the Left. That may well be why we have been suffering such relentless and disastrous defeats for nearly 40 years straight.
A new take is warranted.
Theater critics and football refs critique how others perform, being too frightened or lacking the talent to actually be in the game. Like you.
I think you don't understand the meaning of "protester." Protesters protest against. That's what they do. You want them to "propose." That would be a "proposer." Why don't you start a Propose Movement, go sit outdoors for 2 weeks, and then issue a Manifesto? Then watch as people bitch that you didn't do it right.
One demand:
DIRECT DEMOCRACY!
ezeflyer,
Exactly.
The oligarchy must go. The oligarchy is conspIratorial, canny and mendacious. Their constant, generational plotting to control and enslave most of the population never stops. Our original form of government (which we long ago ceased to have - thanks to the oligarchy) needs to be restored. The oligarchy cannot be reasoned with. They will always attack and distort social safety net programs with Luntz type Orwellian buzzwords and every form of trickery and authoritarian tyranny in their extensive tool box. They must be prosecuted and stripped of their assets and economc power to buy politicians and promote the actual nation destroying status quo. Otherwise, no matter what concessions are wrung out them, they'll change a few names and issue some token slaps on some wrists and continue their calloused, predatory capitalist behavior without missing a beat.
The present form of government in the USA is no longer a shadow of the original because, thanks to Rockefeller, Carnegie and other industrial predatory capitalists that loved fascism and hated representative government, a MASSIVE CORK was put on the House of Representatives count (1913). As the population grew, the value of your vote declined and the power of corporate money increased. Now a Representative in the House covers 700,000! Your vote is now worth less than one TWENTIETH of what a vote was worth in 1789!
The internet has the full framework of an electronic democracy with all the safeguards and potential committee structures easily established. We don't need the elitist corporate crooks in DC to run this country. We need to take the power from them and guarantee they never steal it back by establishing total democracy.
For those that fear the "tyranny of the masses", I say, if you can't trust a pluraity of a population to vote for their best interests, you can't trust anyone.
Of course getting back to 30,000 population per rep would be wildly popular in the USA among the voting public. That's probably why you don't hear a peep from the oligarchy owned media about it. Also our reps are probably not too keen on sharing power with many other reps (they SO love their perks). But it must be done if we are to keep the oligarchy in check.
Some will say that, since the Constitution doesn't state a MAXIMUM amount per district, it's a-okay to have 700,000 instead of 30,000. So it's uncontitutional to have a district with, for example, 20,000 population (33% less than 30,000) but it IS constitutional to have a district with 700,000 (2,300% MORE than 30,000)!!!? Any rational attempt to deal with this issue must admit that when the founders set a minimum of 30,000, they would have balked at a district twice that size (60,000), let alone a district 23 TIMES that size (700,000 today)! So I don't care what the supine supreme court, congress or the white house corporate whores say about our present form of "representation" being "Constitutional". That's a lie. We are a corporatocracy completely unresponsive and unaccountable to the people. That form of tyranny is unconstitutional and we need to get our original representation back from the liars and crooks who stole it from us. We need to get in the face of our reps and senators and YELL that our government is illegitimate BECAUSE it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
After we get a legitimate democratic representative republic, we can then push for total electronic direct democracy. As things stand now, the powers that be will fight us tooth and nail. The powerful never cead power without a fight.
The American Right (which includes neo-liberal DLC Democrats and old guard corporate Republicans) and far-Right (neo-conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers) pretends that it doesn't play identity politics or race cards; doesn't over-concentrate anti-democratic $Trillions of dollars of wealth in the hands of the richest one percent of Americans at the direct expense of the middle-class and lower-class; doesn't legalistically and illegally offshore upwards of $300 Billion dollars a year in taxable income; hasn't deliberately choked this nation's productivity with corporate-pushed "free trade" offshoring and the Walmart import model of domestic economic attrition; hasn't pocketed ever more in historically unprecedented and fiscally insane wartime tax cuts for the super-rich, hasn't pocketed fatter profits & dividends from the deregulation of food, drugs, resource extraction and workers' safety resulting in food adulteration (with unhealthy artificial chemicals, fillers, genetic modifications, anti-biotics & hormones) and biologically contaminated food, the marketing of dangerous & improperly tested drugs, major oil spills in our coastal regions and rivers, coal mine cave-ins and burst slag dam contamination of our rivers and streams, coal and tar sand oil CO2 pollution of our globally warming atmosphere, fracking contamination of our aquifers and soaring numbers of on-the-job injuries due to "relaxed," eliminated or ignored worker safety plans, rules and equipment.
Some questions that should be posed about (or even better, to) the U.S. and EU super-rich:
(1) Why do they insist that all the rest of humanity be enslaved to the globalized markets they so assiduously serve?
(2) Don't they serve themselves first and foremost from their super-affluent influence on, and ability to participate excessively gainfully in globalized market speculation than do those markets actually serve the rest of humanity who can't afford to gainfully gamble on those markets, or expect governments to cover our stock market gambling losses at public expense and simultaneously protect our occupational bonuses?
(3) Is the purpose of humanity to serve corporations and their markets, or do corporations and their markets exist to serve humanity?
(4) Isn't it crystal clear that the very rich and super-rich expend obscene levels capital to bankroll the self-seeking careers of mercenary politicians in all three currently dominant political Parties in the U.S.?
Current US population: approx 300 million. US pop. in 1790: approx 4 million. So, yes, your vote has been diluted. It could not be any other way.
You suggest a House that has 1 representative for every 30,000 of population. That would be 10,000 Representatives. Even at 1:60,000 (which you claim would have caused the Founders to balk), the House of Representatives would have a membership of 5,000.
There is no possible way that a body that large could function.
"There is no possible way that a body that large could function."
Here is a way:
http://ni4d.us/
My friends and U decided to reject your demand.
sorry.
You certainly will be.
Bravo. and to say that I have been discouraged since the early 70's fraught with the belief that those who wish to change the world had subordinated the desire to change in lieu of the wash into the middle stream. I can only say Bravo and the need for change so evident must happen now so that we have any chance of survival in even the next few years. The belief that some global disaster will happen in the next generation or that the collapse will eventually happen must be dispelled. The ancients have said prepare for this in the eleventh hour, and we are in it.We need a return to sanity and common sense and fair and equitable distribution of resources, the right to health and clean food, alternatives in energy and housing options, access to the opportunity to better ourselves...and not cattle to a capitulating system bent on foraging every resource to the benefit of the extreme few
The Green Party was established to give voice at the polls to people with the same concerns as the Occupy Wall Street people, but there is not a single mention of this party, or any progressive party, in the article or the comments to date.
Green Party: Get involved with this movement.
Occupy Wall Streeters: Get involved with the Greens.
We need all Americans to the left of center pulling together from a common base if we are ever going to break the R & D stranglehold.
Sadly, the Green Party USA has been a long standing disappointment for their inability to have coordinated exactly the types of REAL action we're seeing here, in this very young, and largely UNFUNDED action.
Yours is a VERY good question posed. Why aren't the Green Party representatives showing up IN FORCE and showing their 100% support and endorsement for the Occupy USA movement?
They want votes in the upcoming election? What better way to stand up and be heard, while empowering both themselves AND Occupy?
Good point.
Michael Moore even showed up.
Where are the NY Greens?
(I am afraid I know the answer, still trying to come to consensus on whether or not to go and show support)
Where's Nader and the rest of the usual suspects for that matter?
Salman-effing-Rushdie has tweeted his support, where's Nader?
I agree with you.
But I think that the sort of "new beginning" this Movement represents may be the way forward for the US Greens rather than the other way around.
Does the Green Party represent a good common base?
I think some sort of Left Coalition Party would be a better bet.
But this thing might be moving us in a wholly new direction with new Parties differentiating somewhere down the line instead of current Parties defining the process now.
Yes matti, the US Greens would be the primary beneficiaries.
Agreed that the Greens, in their present form, leave a lot to be desired, but they are an established party.
Consider the difficulties involved in gaining ballot access - which even the Greens, though established for more than a decade, do not have in all 50 states.
There is squabbling among the Greens, some of which at least is incited by agent provocateurs from the Rs and/or Ds, which the leadership is having difficulties dealing with, and the party is inactive in several states.
But it should be much more expedient to deal with these problems, and improve the Greens, rather than try to establish a new party which would probably have to deal with many of the same problems the Greens have today, and also take an inordinate length of time to arrive at the point where the Greens are today.
Our need for a political base is immediate. We do not have the luxury of time to assemble a new party from scratch. The Greens Party is at least established.
Let's try to fix it, have it gain leadership of the left, then form a coalition with other existing progressive parties.
A single, well organized party of the left would be far more effective than several.
re: "But it should be much more expedient to deal with these problems, and improve the Greens, rather than try to establish a new party which would probably have to deal with many of the same problems the Greens have today"
I would like to agree, but cannot deny being skeptical.
The Greens have got to GET IT TOGETHA. Stop allowing yourselves to be tools of the right! Set up a litmus test and kick those astroturf 'Greens' out!
No excuses. The Green Party could learn a thing or two from Greenpeace, with whom they also should form an alliance (along with Occupy the US). It's called Get Active and Get Creative and Get More Involved!
A+++
Manysummits
Hey folks, this is a start. Are there grievances missing? Of course. Do all the grievances have to be explicitely aired in the very first manifesto of a baby movement? No. The list of grievances includes most serious problems, and ties all of them to runaway corporate power. There will be other manifestos, and "slogans" will proliferate. But, at this point, the main point is to spread the word, build the numbers, try to be inclusive. Carping at details right now is counter-productive. There is more important work to do.
It's clear the nitpickers didn't even read the Declaration. At best, they skimmed it. Because, it clearly states, with an Asterick (*), that this list is not all-inclusive.
People who weren't there, who risked nothing, not mere inconvenience, nor cold and rain, nor arrest and prosecution, nor beatings and pepper-spray, have no right to complain.
But they will. Because that's all they know how to do. Because they lack the moral and physical courage that the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters have.
they need to stop their wars, stop the mayhem everywhere, ground the drones, free the thousands of prisoners from the gulag, stop extra judicial murders,
and stop lying to us.
It's a good list with a good underlying unity - Wall Street caused all these problems.
I understand the Marines are coming - in full dress - in support of the occupiers, on Monday.
"Mace me - make my day" - might be their attitude?
If they do come, it would restore some of my faith in people.
Manysummits
=====
Read some tweets that some are already at Liberty Park and some cops flashing their badges and saying they too support the occupation.
Ah, truly beautiful and courageous! Will be joining you this Wednesday with some older folks who are deeply inspired by your efforts. Hats off to our youth!
118 comments? One week ago there were a dozen comments, maybe, on articles like these, all of them criticism. The protestors don't do this, they don't do that, they don't have any leaders, they don't have a real message... blah, blah, blah.... CD posters are some real keyboard-activists! You all make me sick with your holier-than-thou b.s.
I don't have the right to criticize this manifesto. While they spent the last 14 days living and meeting and marching and sleeping outdoors, in some unpleasant weather, I was comfortable in my home. While they ate whatever was available from donations, I had the pick of my fridge and pantry. And while they braved police batons (that's the modern and more effective version of the old nightstick) and pepper-spray and arrest and prosecution, I was safe at home. No one who wasn't there has the right to criticize.
You live next to DC, so you really should be at freedom plaza in DC, starting this thursday. Across Pennsylvania Ave. from city hall. If you can't stay overnight, then ride the metro in, spend a few hours each day, ride back out.